SIGNPOSTS AND WAYMARKS
by Chris Beney
Comment is sought from readers about signposting and waymarking issues.

The writer believes that some highway authorities fail to understand the law (indeed in an otherwise good statement of the law even the Ramblers' Association has fluffed this one see below) this means that the performance target may be claimed to have been met when it actually hasn't.

The requirement of the Countryside Act 1968 is for signposts wherever a path leaves a metalled road and showing, so far as the highway authority consider convenient and appropriate, where the path leads, and the distances to these places. Convenient and appropriate means to the public, not to the highway authority of course, though I fear those words add to the problem. One might ask when it would ever not be convenient and appropriate to the public to have destination and distance. There will be some cases, maybe for a short path across a corner of a green. In such cases one would expect a highway authority to record their reasons and make them publicly available.

The Countryside Act also requires waymarks to assist people unfamiliar with the locality in following the route of the path.

For the Future we need to make signmaking easier.

Access officers are tempted to take the easy way out and simply use generic  "Public Footpath" or "Public Bridleway" signs because getting signs with destinations and distances requires a bit more time and effort.

Imagine if road signs just said "Public Road" instead of say "Birmingham 16".

Highway authorities should be looking to modern technology to help them here:
Printouts of self-adhesive waterproof and lightfast sheets on computer printers would be bliss, stocks of blank signs in various sizes could be held and signs done in-house as and when required, indeed with laptops and cheap invertors (12v dc to 230v ac) they could be done in the field.
 

BADFA has put up or specified well over 100 signs, we worked with the Borough (Hertsmere) to get a specification that would reduce the bending and defacing of the existing signs. About half of the signs have been up ten years, we have only lost one, plus one that was carted away when the lamppost it was fixed to was changed. Hedge flails have damaged (significantly) a couple more. No letter picking has been seen. Since we changed from 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch banding (for fixing to the post) with its greater tension capability we have had little turning of signs. One persistent case was cured with a stainless screw through the band and into the post. A special drill is helpful on this material. We now do this where we might anticipate trouble.
 

Colours shown here are NOT MATCHED OR CORRECT, they are indicative only.

Example of incorporation of featured location: Country Park, Ancient Monument etc.('Merryhill' on the sign is a large public access open space)

Construction:
Note that the ends of the aluminium sections are cut obliquely to match the sign plate, they look very ugly without this. The sign is covered in clear plastic both sides as an anti-vandal (picking of letters) measure.
 

Treatment of RUPPs, which most people don't understand, by notice saying "Public right of way on foot, horse and pedal cycle". As here this can cause problems as those words only apply to one of the routes. Perhaps horse, cycle and walker symbols on the sign itself would serve better. And 'RUPP' is short so there is room.
The older upper sign has 1/2 inch strapping, the newer lower one 3/4 inch.

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Footnote on signposts and waymarks:
[square brackets references to Countryside Act 1968]

Comment on the Ramblers' Association (RA) web statement. The RA was in good company in not appearing to understand the law here. They have now put the worst error right but there are still issues outstanding as at March 2004.

Their new and improved text says:
A..Highway authorities have a duty to put up signposts at all junctions of footpaths, bridleways and byways with metalled roads. The signs must show whether a path is a footpath, bridleway or byway and may also show other information such as destination and distance.
and

B. Highway authorities also have a duty to waymark paths along the route so far as they consider it appropriate.

I think it a pity they don't refer to the power to delegate to user groups [CA68(5)] but that may just be to keep it simple.

There remain two more substantive issues about A and B above:

A. How mandatory is the inclusion of destination and distance in signs? The RA says the signs 'may' show them.  But the statute says 'shall': [CA68s27(2) and (2)(b)] "the highway authority shall... showing, so far as the highway authority consider convenient and appropriate, where the footpath.. leads, and the distance to any places named on the signpost."
The 'convenience' is for users not the authority of course. So it would appear it is a duty, not a power, to put destination and distance on signs, but with  a power to opt out in certain cases. I consider the law much better stated as "Shall, unless an officer has decided that it is neither convenient (for the users) nor appropriate to do so, show destinations and distances."

B. On waymarking the RA's words "so far as they consider it appropriate" is not really correct. The word "appropriate" appears in [CA68s27(2)(b)] and doesn't appear in [s27(4)] and so doesn't apply to waymarking.
For waymarking the test is [s27(4)]: whether waymarks are "in the opinion of the highway authority, required to assist persons unfamiliar with the locality to follow the course of a path". This is a very specific test that the RA's word 'appropriate' doesn't do justice to.

The rest of the RA's web statement of path law is pretty good now. http://www.ramblers.org.uk/info/factsheets/footpathlaw.html
 

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